Published in Physics World, 22 Oct 2010
It was one of Stephen Hawking’s finest insights: the 1974 prediction that black holes are not totally black, but emit a steady stream of radiation. Experimental confirmation of Hawking radiation would probably bring the 68 year-old British cosmologist a Nobel Prize in Physics. Unfortunately, no-one has been able to detect a black-hole signal because it would be so faint compared with the universe’s background radiation.
However, Hawking’s chances at a Nobel may be rising, thanks to a paper that will soon be published in the journal Physical Review Letters. In this work, Italian physicists describe what many believe to be the first measurement of Hawking radiation from a black hole “analogue” in the lab. […]
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